Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg

Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (11 November 1599-28 March 1655) was Queen consort of Sweden from 25 November 1620 to 6 November 1632 with King Gustavus Adolphus.

Biography
Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg was born in 1599, the daughter of Elector Johan Sigismund of Brandenburg and Duchess Anna of Prussia. In 1620, she married King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden at her mother's consent, but against the will of her brother Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg, who had just succeeded their father. Maria Eleonora gave birth to the future Queen Christina of Sweden in 1626, and she would be reputed to be the most beautiful queen in Europe. Her husband died at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632, and Maria Eleonora went insane, keeping her husband's body in an open-coffin state at her residence for eighteen months, patting him and ignoring his decomposition. This resulted in the humiliated chancellor Axel Oxtenstierna taking custody over Christina, and Maria Eleonora was known to weep for hours and days on end in the years following her husband's death. Maria Eleonora briefly lived in Denmark, but she returned to Sweden in 1648, and she died in 1655, a year after her daughter's abdication as Queen.